School of Rock at Chop Suey

On Saturday, June 17, 2016, the School of Rock West Seattle took over Chop Suey for their “Brit Pop and 21st Century Rock” show. With friends and family in attendance, the students rocked the house with songs from Oasis, Radiohead, Blur, The Black Keys, System of a Down, and The White Stripes. These kids were amazing! Even if I wasn’t photographing the show, I would’ve had a blast.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the show:

For this shoot, I used the following gear:

• Nikon D600 + Nikkor 70–200/2.8 VRII.
• Fujifilm X100T + WCL-X100 wide-angle converter.

My D600 with 70–200/2.8 were used for all of the tight shots and for shooting over audience members. That combo also allowed me to get shots of the drummers, who were buried in the darkness at the back of the stage.

My X100T with the wide-angle converter gave me the full-frame equivalent of a 28mm f/2 lens to get wide shots. I could have brought my 24–70/2.8 for my D600, but I didn’t want to lug a lot of gear into the show. The X100T performed beautifully, with only a handful of mis-focused shots (mostly when there was no contrast).

One last piece of gear of note is my Anker SoundBuds Slim wireless earbuds. I wore them while shooting near the stage to save my ears from the sonic blast of the speakers. Normal squishy earplugs don’t fit my ears well at all, but my Anker earbuds do. I’m very happy that I keep them in my bag with me at all times.

You can see more photos from the show here: http://photography.dannyngan.com/p463332401.